During a recent bout of insomnia, I decided some late-night reading might put me in a sleepy state of mind. I didn’t want anything too serious, nor with print so small I had to strain to read it (new glasses are on their way). I looked through the library and came upon a few Hardy Boys books I’d saved from the late 1950s. “Perfect!” I thought. I started on the first of the series, “The Tower Treasure.” It wasn’t bad. I enjoyed it. And it did put me in a calm state of mind.
I moved on to another, “Hunting for Hidden Gold.” This one was utterly preposterous. The Boys travel to Montana to help their father on a case, are hijacked along the way, get lost in a blizzard, fall down a mineshaft, are almost murdered by an evil gang led by a guy called Black Pepper, and come close to being dinner for a pack of ferocious wolves. Really! What kind of father would let that all happen? Yet even with all that action, it was a bit of a slog. I started a third, “A Figure in Hiding,” which hasn’t proven to be very interesting.
These books were incredibly popular when I was a kid, and for many years before and after. Really, they were about all we had as juvenile literature. But I hadn’t read one in more than 60 years. Reading them as an adult was just surreal, yet I felt some warm nostalgia for them, and their very old-fashioned-ness often made me smile.
They have been seriously revised many times over the years to eliminate some frankly racist verbiage and dated references
So, have you ever picked up the Hardy Boys, for fun or nostalgia, and read them through adult eyes? If you are a woman, have you re-read any of the Nancy Drew books you loved as a youngster? What was your reaction?
And by the way, the story of who author “Franklin W. Dixon” was and how these books were churned out is rather interesting too.
At one point I had, and read, all of their books. I want to say it was 57 plus the Hardy Boys Detective Handbook. I do not imagine that they hold up well enough for me to even try reading one now.
Every once in a while, I remember the time when I read Encyclopedia Brown books. I assume I’d figure out 100% of his “cases” now, but never actually went back and tried. I still remember some of them now, close to 50 years later.
I never read Hardy Boys but I loved Encyclopedia Brown. The same author had adult books called Two Minute Mysteries which was the same concept but with adult themes like adultery and murder as I recall.
I reread a Tom Swift, Jr. book a few years ago as research for a project. The science was surprisingly good but the plot was basic serial western, with kidnapping, knockouts, spies, evil villains, and last-second derring-do. And the dialog… Oh, my.
I reread a couple of early Nancy Drew books, and was really dismayed at how much of a slog they were. I’d remembered them being much better written back in 4th grade. Maybe I have less patience now.
I’ve never revisted a Hardy Boys mystery as an adult. I read a few of the books as wee lad, but it’s been more than 40 years and can’t recall what any of them were about. I also read a few Encyclopedia Brown books, and I can remember how he solved two of them. The first involved photos of what was a dead lobster rather than a live one. The second involved the ice in a cup melting after it had been locked in a safe.
The only book I’ve revisted from my childhood was How to Eat Fried Worms, and that was because it was part of a Banned Book Week a while back.
I had all, or at least nearly all of the Hardy boys books in hardback. Whatever revision would’ve been current in say the late 70s. They struck me as being out of date and keyed to the 50s or early 60s, but I’m reading it now, it was a unified update completed in ‘73. I had considered bringing them home with me when I emptied my parents house, but eventually, I just got exasperated with packing and donated them somewhere. I would’ve loved to have revisited at least a couple.
What I didn’t have was my favorite series. I was really partial to the Three Investigators, mostly because I thought their clubhouse was the coolest thing ever.
Part workshop, hideaway, and detective office, the Three Investigators maintain their headquarters in an old house trailer hidden among piles of junk at the edge of the Jones’s scrapyard. The house trailer is outfitted with multiple secret exits, a small lab, darkroom, telephone, typewriter, and reference works. Jupiter often used spare parts salvaged from the scrapyard to build equipment for the team, including a tape recorder and periscope.
Over the years I have collected a complete set of the Hardy Boys original pre-rewrite books. Indeed one was a SDMB Secret Santa gift many years ago (The Mystery of the Flying Express, I believe.)
I grew up reading the books in the sixties, mostly the rewrites at the time. My first book was The Wailing Siren Mystery, a birthday gift when I was six. Hooked me.
I have read all the pre-rewrites over the last ten or so years. I think most of both the rewrites of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are available free nowadays online.
When I was collecting the old books my wife and I would sometimes read them aloud to each other at bedtime. We’d laugh at some of the silliness and cringe at the racism that would occasionally appear in some of the volumes. But there were also times when the stories were fun and the mysteries if not good, were at least good enough.
I have been also slowly hunting out pre-rewrite Nancy Drew books and reading them as well. These old books offer a way to peek into the culture of the times. They also bring back to me an innocence that of course is now lost but was once there in a story and then another story, and then another.
I’m practically the same. I read a couple Hardy Boys books as a child, thanks to The Mickey Mouse Club, but haven’t revisited as an adult. Tom Swift, yes as a child, nope as an adult.
The Wizard of Oz books OTOH I hunted down and downloaded into my Kindle.
I read a few of them as a kid back in the 1970s but haven’t tried to read them since then. I think some of the earliest novels are now in the public domain, so you should be able to find the text of them online someplace.
I haven’t gotten back into them but I was a big fan of two of the series when I was a kid. I was collecting the hardcovers and I also loved the Hardy Boys Casefiles which was a much more mature take on their adventures. For example, in the very first Casefile, Joe’s girlfriend gets killed by a car bomb. They were pretty hardcore for books aimed at teens and I’d love to read them again but they’re not in a coherent set for Kindle yet.
One day I will find this in print again. I remember it was one of the coolest books I ever owned as a kid and I loved books.
They had the early Red hard covers. Original 1930’s edition.
I read them. They were a fun read. I was surprised the Hardy Boys carried guns. They were unsupervised and took risks like adult detectives.
The later revisions made the Hardy Boys younger and more wholesome.
My original Hardy Boy collection was bought in the 1970’s. I was in junior high. I bought a lot of them by ordering from Sears. My local bookstore had a limited stock.